D. B.

Your most affectionate, humble servant,

PATRICK CUMING.

Edin. Nov. 13, 1742.

A Letter from Mr. Mac-Laurin, late Professor of Mathematicks in the
University of Edinburgh, to the Reverend Mr. George Blair, Rector of the
Grammar school at Dundee.

SIR,
Though unacquainted, I take the liberty of giving you this trouble, from
the desire I have always had to see Mr. Lauder provided in a manner
suited to his talent. I know him to have made uncommon progress in
classical learning, to have taught it with success, and never heard
there could be any complaint against his method of teaching. I am,
indeed, a stranger to the reasons of his want of success on former
occasions. But after conversing with him, I have ground to hope, that he
will be always advised by you, for whom he professes great esteem, and
will be useful under you. I am,

Sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,

COLIN MAC-LAURIN.

College of Edinburgh, Nov. 30, 1742.

A Letter from the Authors of the Universal History, to Mr. Lauder.
London, August 12th, 1741.

LEARNED SIR,

When we so gladly took the first opportunity of reviving the memory and
merit of your incomparable Johnston, in the first volume of our
Universal History, our chief aim was to excite some generous Mecenas to
favour the world with a new edition of a poem which we had long since
beheld with no small concern, buried, as it were, by some unaccountable
fatality, into an almost total oblivion; whilst others of that kind,
none of them superior, many vastly inferior to it, rode, unjustly, as we
thought, triumphant over his silent grave. And it is with great
satisfaction that we have seen our endeavours so happily crowned in the
edition you soon after gave of it at Edinburgh, in your learned and
judicious vindication of your excellent author, and more particularly by
the just deference which your learned and pious convocation has been
pleased to pay to that admirable version.

We have had since then, the pleasure to see your worthy example followed
here, in the several beautiful editions of the honourable Mr. Auditor
Benson, with his critical notes upon the work.

It was, indeed, the farthest from our thoughts, to enter into the merit
of the controversy between your two great poets, Johnston and Buchanan;
neither were we so partial to either as not to see, that each had their
shades as well as lights; so that, if the latter has been more happy in
the choice and variety o